Teaching Economics Using Virtual Reality

Summary:

Virtual reality (VR) has been an effective way for Economics Assistant Professor Marc Santugini's students to interact with each other and learn.

Mark Santugini_AH.mov from McIntire School of Commerce on Vimeo.

Virtual reality (VR) has been an effective way for Economics Assistant Professor Marc Santugini's students to interact with each other and learn. In Spring 2021, Santugini met with four students each week to talk about economics and VR. In this environment, he's able to replicate what he would normally do in a face-to-face course, such as splitting students into groups, commenting on their work, leading discussions, and creating other opportunities for student interaction. He also says economics has a lot of graphs and VR helps to bring these visuals to life in 3D for students. Santugini plans to keep using VR in future courses and exploring new ways to study complex economic models and data sets.